


Historica

by Bianca MarOu (glazedmacguffin)



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-03
Updated: 2010-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-05 18:15:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glazedmacguffin/pseuds/Bianca%20MarOu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short prompt fic.  Data is sent with an away team to investigate a mysterious planet called Historica that functions as a giant museum.  There he finds something of his.  Other fandoms mentioned because... eh, why not?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Historica

If it weren't for the dire consequences of their situation, the discovery would have been quite intriguing. Even despite the fact the _Enterprise_ had passed through a temporal anomaly and found itself orbiting a strange M-Class planet, Data was fascinated by the sights beyond the protective energy field reinforced preservative glass he had been sent to investigate. The long, expansive hallway was dark; whoever kept the museum had deemed it after hours. The android was using a hand held light to look at the displays, the glass reflecting the light and then his golden eyes reflecting that right back as he leaned in to look at each display. It was all very intriguing, actually. Items from places and planets he knew well and some from places he had never read anything about.

His comm badge chirped, and he tapped it to respond. "Lt. Commander Data here."

"Data, have you found anything?" Riker responded. He could detect the hollow echo in the background, the Commander's bold voice resonating off the walls of the section he was investigating.

"Sir, I found a display with a Borg, but I have also found something called a 'Cyberman' next it, and a 'Cylon' next to that. There are extensive descriptions beneath each display that detail the significance of these-"

"Data!" Riker snapped, as usual unwilling to entertain a long-winded ramble. Data's mouth snapped shut, and he resigned himself to listening. He tried not to be disappointed, but a little nagging ping from his chip prodded him, and the edges of a frown formed on his lips.

"Have you seen anything _alive_?" he continued.

"No, sir."

"Then get back to me when you have. Riker out."

Data tapped the badge again to turn off the channel, and looked down the length of hallway with the light. Then the other way. Even without the light, his specialized visual sensors would have allowed him to see that there was no one there, nor any movement. The glass displays, possessing an energy charge that he couldn't quite see through with his photoresistors.

He trained the light over another display, the figure inside smooth and silver; humanoid, but with blades coming out of its arms. There was no face, much like a prototype android before physical appearance was defined. A few steps more, and he was at the next, a jarring looking chrome skeleton. With a simple raise of his brows, he flashed the light over the description, committed the information, and continued down the row.

In the next display, the light passed over his own face behind the glass.

Like a sharp electrical jolt, his body shook and he took a step back, dropping the light. The emotion chip was getting the best of him then, his gold eyes wide and mouth agape as he stared forward. The light spun, occasionally illuminating the figure sitting quietly and comfortably in a chair wearing black, tight armor.

Data swallowed, and collected the dropped light to examine the description.  


  
_**Subject:** Lore  
**Notable Information:** Collected in Paralell Year 05.84445.2, this android was one of only two functioning Soong-type androids. This subject was claimed by the Daystrom Institute after the death of original claimant and placed in storage with our three Flint-type models. All three were acquired during the Andorian revolution..._

Data skimmed over the technical information below it, detailing the significant difference between Soong-type androids, Flint-type androids, and Movellan androids. But he couldn't keep his eyes off that quiet face, and it took him a bit to register that he hadn't closed his mouth. These people had acquired his brother. These people had put him on display.

It rang too much of Kivas Fajo. He had expected Data to present himself to his guests and perform as necessary, though. This couldn't be the case here, but now his brother was another person's intellectual curiosity. A quizzical stand-point in the development of some universe that some people hadn't heard about. His twisted, sick brother who resented all organic life was stuck behind force field reinforced glass as a presentation for them.

Setting the light on the floor, Data pulled out his tricorder and started scanning the base. The resentment surging from his emotion chip overwhelming him; overriding the necessity to contact his commander. Instead, he found himself frantically looking for a way to disrupt the containment and get to the android inside. He didn't belong here, in any time. He didn't deserve to be put on display, even if he was deactivated.

None of the field settings had wavelengths he could manipulate. Putting the tricorder away, he stepped back and drew his phaser, aiming at a corner of the display. When the beam hit it, the display front rippled. Shock waves radiated out, and briefly the figure of Lore was bathed in red light. Still quiet. Still silent. And the blast had no effect on the containment as the energy was dispersed.

The shot must have done something, though, the entire corridor was bathed in red light, an alarm squealing loudly.

Data looked up and around, at the long line of robots illuminated. Lore was just one in what looked to be 843 cybernetic or robotic specimens. But he wasn't one in all of that. He was his brother. His disturbed, malfunctioning brother that his father loved just as much as he ever loved Data.

The comm badge chirped again. It was Riker again, asking what was going on. Data disregarded it for now, listening but not responding as he jogged down the hall in search of a way to turn off the alert system. A conduit. An emergency button. Anything.

He could hear the rumble from beneath better than any human could. It was slight- the turning of machinery as it slid huge metal panels up into place. Data stopped in his tracks, watching as the displays were slowly being blocked off.

"Data! Respond!"

"Sir! I am afraid I have a situation," he finally responded, jogging back to Lore's display. He pressed his hands up against the glass, using his strength in a futile attempt to push through. There was a charge from the reinforcing energy field, creating a grounding loop. It tingled through his fiberoptic sensors, numbing his fingers in a way that would take a diagnostic to correct, and still he persisted. He scraped with blunt fingertips, cringing, enough to creak the glass with pressure.

"-ight there's a situation. We have to get out of there. The anomaly opened up. We don't know if it will happen again. We have to go _now_." His voice was no longer punctuated by that echo. He wasn't in the museum, anymore. He was on the _Enterprise_.

"Sir, there's-" he set his mouth taughtly as the metal covering disrupted his hands, shoving into his way and blocked off the view of his brother.

"We're beaming you out of there."

He had enough time to step back and look to his right. Before the obscurity brought about by a transporter overcame him, figures entered the far door at the hallway. He could have asked them. He wanted to ask them.

Then he was in the transporter room, still looking in that direction though now at a wall, and the first person he was aware of was Riker's voice.

"Data! What happened down there?" His superior approached him, somewhere between disgruntled and concerned. It still threw him when Data had emotional reactions. Especially ones this disruptive.

The android couldn't respond at first. He looked at Riker with wide gold eyes, then flitted them from side to side as he tried to access what he had seen. To review it internally as a file, and to deal with it coldly and algorithmically.

"...It was Lore, sir..."

"Lore!" Riker's alarm was evident, and perhaps his demeanor a little bit wary. Though, after their last contact with Lore, Data couldn't blame him.

"Sir. After we are done on the bridge, I would like to run a diagnostic," he said, even before it was recommended. He needed to confirm to them that he was Data, that he wasn't Lore, nor was he taken over by Lore, and that his memory of Lore was not a contrived digitally induced dream. Though perhaps, deep down a bit, he hoped that it was.

"Alright. Report to the bridge," the bearded man continued, more careful than before as he evaluated Data, and then stepped out of his way as he stepped off the transporter pad.

"...Yes sir," Data responded somewhat dispassionately. There was nothing he could do, now, but report to the bridge, help them get out of the anomaly, and wonder what and when was going to become of him that he couldn't stop his brother's lifeless corpse from being put on display.


End file.
